by Jean Johnson
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
SUNDARA
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
GUILDARA
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
AURUL
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
JENODAN ISLES
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
PRAISE FOR JEAN JOHNSON AND THE SONS OF DESTINY
“Jean Johnson’s writing is fabulously fresh, thoroughly romantic, and wildly entertaining. Terrific—fast, sexy, charming, and utterly engaging. I loved it!”—Jayne Ann Krentz, New York Times bestselling author
“Cursed brothers, fated mates, prophecies, yum! A fresh new voice in fantasy romance, Jean Johnson spins an intriguing tale of destiny and magic.”—Robin D. Owens, RITA Award-winning author
“A must-read for those who enjoy fantasy and romance. I ... eagerly look forward to each of the other brothers’ stories. Jean Johnson can’t write them fast enough for me!”—The Best Reviews
“[It] has everything—love, humor, danger, excitement, trickery, hope, and even sizzling hot ... sex.”—Errant Dreams
“Enchantments, amusement, eight hunks, and one bewitching woman make for a fun romantic fantasy ... Humorous and magical ... [A] delightful charmer.”—Midwest Book Review
“A paranormal adventure series that will appeal to fantasy and historical fans, plus time-travel lovers as well. Jean Johnson has created a mystical world of lessons taught, very much like the great folktales we love to hear over and over. It’s like Alice in Wonderland meets the Knights of the Round Table and you’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next. Delightful entertainment ... An enchanting tale with old world charm, The Sword will leave you dreaming of a sexy mage for yourself.”—Romance Junkies
“An intriguing new fantasy romance series ... [A] unique combination of magic, time travel, and fantasy that will have readers looking toward the next book. Think Seven Brides for Seven Brothers but add one more and give them magic, with curses and fantasy thrown in for fun. Cunning ... Creative ... Lovers of magic and fantasy will enjoy this fun, fresh, and very romantic offering.”
—Time Travel Romance Writers
“The writing is sharp and witty and the story is charming. [Johnson] makes everything perfectly believable. She has created an enchanting situation and characters that are irascible at times and lovable at others. Jean Johnson ... is off to a flying start. She tells her story with a lively zest that transports a reader to the place of action. I can hardly wait for the next one. It is a must-read.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“A fun story. I look forward to seeing how these alpha males find their soul mates in the remaining books.”—The Eternal Night
“An intriguing world ... An enjoyable hero ... An enjoyable showcase for an inventive new author. Jean Johnson brings a welcome voice to the romance genre, and she’s assured of a warm welcome.”
—The Romance Reader
“An intriguing and entertaining tale of another dimension ... It will be fun to see how the prophecy turns out for the rest of the brothers.”
—Fresh Fiction
Titles by Jean Johnson
SHIFTING PLAINS
BEDTIME STORIES
FINDING DESTINY
The Sons of Destiny
THE SWORD
THE WOLF
THE MASTER
THE SONG
THE CAT
THE STORM
THE FLAME
THE MAGE
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2011 by Jean Johnson.
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation trade paperback edition / January 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Johnson, Jean, 1972-
Finding destiny/Jean Johnson.—Berkley Sensation trade paperback ed.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-101-47826-4
I. Title.
PS3610.O355F56 2011
813’—dc22 2010040816
http://us.penguingroup.com
SUNDARA
ONE
His tongue kept getting him into trouble. Eduor Aragol knew this, yet couldn’t seem to stop. When his elderly owner Midalla clutched at her chest and keeled over after a dust-induced coughing fit, only to be pronounced dead mere moments later by one of the caravan guards, the last thing he should have said aloud was, “—Thank the Gods!”
But he did, and he had. The heartfelt words had left his tongue without thought, and now he was stuck with the consequences of his carelessness. Despite the dust and sand filtering into the cave, brought in by the gusts of wind toying with the torches which struggled to provide them with some light, he could see the glare aimed at him from Midalla’s niece, Famiel.
“You slime!” the middle-aged woman snarled, her voice rising above the whistling of the sandstorm outside. Like the rest of them in the cave, she was wearing a scarf over her nose and mouth to filter out the dust of the sandstorm, but her eyes burned with her hatred. “My aunt was too kind to you! She should’ve whipped you like your last owner did!”
Eduor felt his back muscles flinch in memory. He still bore some of the scars from his first half year of captivity. Midalla had bought him from a physically cruel owner simply because he had spoken in near-flawless Sundaran to a fellow merchant on her behalf, smoothing over an inadvertent, misspoken insult for her. Eduor’s father had encouraged him to learn a foreign langua
ge when he was young, and this desert kingdom still traded occasionally with both Mandare and Natallia. After witnessing his fluency firsthand, the elderly merchant had bartered for him. Once she owned him, she had given him extra lessons in the language and the laws and customs of this land, instead of extra whippings.
At first, it had seemed like a slice of heaven: lessons given to a mere war-slave instead of lashings. However, there were other things she had done, things the nearly seventy-year-old woman had demanded as soon as she found out what else his tongue could do besides speak Sundaran fluently. Things which had demeaned and tormented him worse than a lashing. Nothing physically damaging, but a mental and emotional torment all the same.
Watching Midalla’s niece searching brusquely around the cave until she finally found a riding quirt warned him that those days of nonphysical torment were over. He flinched again as she slashed the stiff, braided whip through the air, making it whistle almost as loud as the storm outside.
Famiel had taken advantage of him in many of the same ways her aunt had, and the thought of her whipping him on top of that other humiliation was unbearable. She was harder and more cruel than her now-deceased relative. He would not submit to her, even if it meant his death. Eduor balled up his fists, ready to fight.
“What you with that do, woman?” That came from the Arbran Knight in their midst, Sir Zeilas of some place up north. Catching Famiel by the wrist, the Knight frowned at her. He spoke Natallian poorly and with a thick northerner’s accent, his words further muffled by the linen tied over his lower face, but he did manage to make himself clear. “You not beat anyone in presence of me!”
Glaring, Famiel yanked on her arm, but he didn’t let go. She shoved her dark hair back with her free hand and glared at him. “Unhand me! You have no right to stop me. By right of inheritance, that Mandarite scum is now mine to do with as I please, and I will beat the insolence out of him. Let go of me!—Guards!”
The Sundarans hired by Midalla to escort their trade caravan hesitated. A couple of them reached for their weapons, but no one drew a blade. Eduor felt his fear fade, replaced by burgeoning relief. Famiel’s words had triggered a memory, a precious piece of Sundaran law.
“Wrong,” he stated sharply. The dust in the air tickled his throat, seeping through the scrap of linen covering his own mouth, but he struggled to suppress it. Switching briefly to Sundaran, he ordered, “Stand down, guards, or be accounted an accessory to lawbreaking.”
Famiel blinked at him. “Wrong?” she demanded, still speaking in her native Natallian. “What do you mean, wrong? You are mine, boy, and I’ll teach you to remember your place!”
“In Natallia, yes, you are the heir to all that your aunt owned and held, and thus in Natallia you would inherit her ownership of me ... but we are in Sundara,” Eduor reminded her, returning to their shared, native tongue. “And by Sundar an law, any slave whose owner dies of natural causes is automatically freed.
“I was all the way over here, by the horses and dromids. She was all the way over there, by the baggage and bales,” he reminded her, gesturing at the two ends of the cavern. “I hold no magic nor machinery to affect her health even from up close, let alone from all the way over here. She died of what looks like a heart attack brought on by too much coughing from this damnable dust. Natural causes, on Sundaran soil.
“I am free.” Eduor folded his arms across his chest. In for a copper, in for a gold. “Furthermore, I only expressed an opinion, which free men are entitled to do. By Sundaran law, you cannot whip me for that—oh, and here’s another thing I am now free to say. You taste terrible. Like something that crawled up out of the sea and died in a sewer. Somehow, I doubt you’ve ever heard of soap, let alone know what it’s used for. And I’d rather cut off my own tongue than touch you ever again. Which, thank the Gods, I won’t have to do anymore.”
Rage darkened the visible half of her dusty, suntanned face. Growling, Famiel jerked her wrist free of the Knight’s loosened grasp but did not try to approach Eduor and strike. Instead, she pointed at the blanket-covered cave mouth with the quirt. “Get out!”
“Ah, milady ...” one of the Sundarans interjected.
“Get out!” Famiel repeated, ignoring him. “I may not own you anymore, but I do own this caravan—you want to be a free man in Sundara?” she asked sarcastically, slashing her hand and its thin crop at the cavern entrance once more. “Well, there is your freedom! Get out into it! You are banished immediately from this caravan. Get out.”
“Milady ... all people be welcome to shelter in sandstorm,” one of the Sundaran guards apologized in broken Natallian. “Sorry, you cannot throw out him.”
Eduor fancied he could hear Famiel grinding her teeth. He smirked and countered her next possible claim. “Nor can you strip the clothes from my back without being accused of theft. Plus you have to unlock this collar on my neck now that I am legally free ... and you cannot take my water skin from me. To deny a man water in the desert is to deny him life. As I am not a criminal on Sundaran soil,” he emphasized, since he knew she could try to dredge up his Mandarite background, “to do so would make you the criminal. And, just like in Natallia, they have ways of dealing with their criminals. I do not think you would care to be my slave, indentured to me. Not after the way you’ve treated me.”
Fuming, Famiel whirled away, stalking to the far side of the cave. She returned after a few moments with a bag and a length of cloth, and knelt over her aunt’s form, no doubt to start preparing it for burial. Safe for the moment, Eduor remained in the animal half of the cave. It was closer to the entrance and thus to the dust, not to mention the dung underfoot, but nothing would compel him to get closer to the odious woman.
The Arbran Knight watched her work for a few moments, then moved across the cavern to Eduor’s side. His Sundaran was far more fluent than his Natallian, and he used it to speak to Eduor under the cover of the sandstorm’s noise.
“You have made yourself an enemy. Or remade one. I will warn you, I do not agree with the Mandarite philosophy toward women. You owe me for stopping her long enough for you to tell her about the local laws,” Sir Zeilas reminded the younger man. “If you can feel any sense of obligation for that much, then exercise it by staying away from her and not provoking her for the rest of this storm. Save your enmity for your return to Mandare.”
His words made Eduor blink, then squint as another puff of dust swirled past the blankets stretched over the posts framing the mouth of the cave. The posts had been erected by travelers long ago for just such a need. They rattled in their holes, sounding loose and empty. Much like I feel.
“No,” he stated, his voice low but firm. “I’m not going back. I won’t be a slave to anyone or anything. Not even to an idea.”
The Arbran’s dark brows rose, but he didn’t say anything further. Giving the younger man something between a nod and a bow, he strolled away. That left Eduor alone with his thoughts.
As soon as this storm ends, I’ll be out of the cave and out of the caravan. Not that I’ll have much, but I’m grateful I have the clothes on my back and a water skin to drink from ... for as long as it lasts. It was hot in the cave, hot enough to make everyone thirsty. The cistern was at the back end of the cave, behind yet another blanket drape. Beyond the grimly working Famiel and her dead aunt, and the bundles of trade goods they had brought all the way from the jungle forests of Natallia.
Lifting the water skin slung over his head and shoulder, Eduor drank from the half-full skin carefully, not wanting to waste a drop. I’ll refill it later. The same with getting my collar removed. She cannot deny me access to the water, but I don’t care to get anywhere near her right now. Once the storm ends, I’ll either have to leave the cave immediately and try to find my way across the desert on my own, or I could maybe leave and hang around the area, wait until she’s gone, then come back and stay here until the next group of travelers comes through. I doubt I’ll be able to linger. She’ll probably cite that, with the storm over, I
no longer have any claim to sharing it with her and her precious caravan, and won’t want me lingering nearby in case I turn thief.
Which again leaves me with nothing but the clothes on my back and all the water I can pack into this skin . . . and no food to eat. Somehow, Eduor didn’t think she’d share another bite with him. So the question is, do I stay in the hope some other group of travelers will come by soon and take pity on me? Or leave in the hope I can make it all the way back to that last village we passed and look for food and shelter and . . . well ... work, I guess?
After all, he realized, if I’m to remain not only a free man but free of the insanities back home—on both sides of the war—I’ll have to make some other land my home. I do know a bit about Sundaran customs, and I can read and write. Not every Sundaran can, I know, so hopefully there’ll be some use for a scribe, or a translator, or ... anything, really.
The one thing my father did get right when teaching me was his claim that a man can be anything that he sets his mind to be. And I will be free. Even if it means being a Sundaran. Beyond that ... I don’t know what I’ll be. He knew he wasn’t in a position to be picky. A scribe usually provided his or her own pen, ink, and paper to ply the trade, but Eduor had nothing like that. Just my body and my mind, and what I know of Sundaran life and ways.
TWO